


We play like birds prey

by thought



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, disclaimer Percy is not an actual dragon he's just dramatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27338518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: Percy says he is a dragon.He means it.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	We play like birds prey

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to [14CombatGeishas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/14CombatGeishas) for the beta!

Percy says he is a dragon and he means it.

Percy has a city, a family, and a fountain of brilliant, horrible ideas. They are his and he will keep them safe whatever the cost. He is possessive, protective, and relentless, and it is only his pragmatism and his crippling moments of self-doubt that keep him from burning the world down to see his city stand proud in the ashes. He could do it. He has met every challenge he has chosen to take on, and the damage he could do to entire countries with some well-placed words, coin, and black powder is unparalleled. But that’s not important. He would never do it. 

But he could. 

Don’t ever forget that he could.

The rakshasa attacks Vax – in Whitestone, it happens in his fucking castle – and when Percy sees him on the ground he feels something cold settle in the centre of his chest. Once the immediate danger is passed, he’s sharper than he should be, he knows. His friends begin their usual noisy debating and he cuts through it, anger and fear chipping at the fragile ice of his composure.

He knows it’s never his place to give orders, let alone to the twins who had dragged him, broken and pathetic, from a jail cell years before, but there is an unavoidable part of him that is still the Lord of Whitestone, and here they are his responsibility. Percy lives in the constant state of being caught between his self-hatred and the affliction of being right. Percy does not freeze in moments of terror, he acts. It’s debatable if this is a bug or a feature. The moral of this story is that Percy will protect what he loves. Perhaps it would be better if he did not love at all.

He has loved, of course. He loved his family – of course he did. Seeing them killed almost destroyed him, what else could such a reaction indicate? He did not know his siblings or parents particularly well, though at the time he didn’t know any differently. That doesn’t mean thoughts of that night doesn’t still haunt him: the sound of his father pleading for his life, the way his mother looked when she cried, the way blood bubbled over his little brother’s lips. The memories strike him at innocuous moments, curdling his stomach and pressing on the inside of his head so he wants to throw himself against the floor until he’s unconscious.

Before Vex, the person he had had the strongest emotion for in his entire life was Anna Ripley. If absolutely nothing else, he owes Vex’ahlia for bullying her way into his heart and his head with such determination that she blotted out the mess of fear and hatred and envy and guilt that is Ripley. 

He wants Vex. He wants someone who will challenge him, who will indulge him, who will stop him. He wants someone with whom the niceties of society, the lessons drilled into him since birth and constantly policing his every word and action can be set aside. He wants to be cruel without the subsequent apologies and guilt. He has made masks upon masks as necessary without any particular discomfort, but it would be nice to stop thinking about it for a while. He’s not sure he’s ever been genuinely open with anyone but Orthax, and that only out of necessity and willful ignorance. Keyleth in her naïvité is a blessing, her blunt innocence both refreshing and reassuring. Vex is just as blunt, but she is careful with it. The metaphorical dragons Vex has fought are not the same that Percy has, but they have shaped her caution all the same. Percy does not deserve any of this; he knows. But Percy did not deserve to see his entire family slaughtered before him, nor the family he found in the rubble. He deserves very little, good or bad. Nor would he expect it. Anything he has he has earned with his own two hands and his own mind.

Vox Machina is his family. His second chance at one. It’s not at all comparable to the first go round, which likely means he’s done it wrong at one point. He knew and remembers his siblings as concepts, idealized archetypes with names and faces stamped on to each like neatly labelled boxes. He is trying with Cassandra, and he can see the same struggle in her. He throws barbs and affection with a cautious, gentle hand, trying awkwardly to mimic the twins and finding no particular connection from any of it. He plays protective older brother because it is what is expected, but he can’t maintain the act when he knows his sister has become as much of a monster as he has in order to survive. 

His sister is as competent and as willing to bleed for their city as he is. He would no more lose respect for Cassandra's abilities because of his love for her as he would for Vex or Keyleth. If there’s anyone Percy is inclined to bundle away behind stone walls and cotton padding and resentment it is Vax’ildan, and that has nothing to do with his capabilities and everything to do with Percy’s complete lack of faith in Vax’s judgement and self-preservation instincts.

The twins are what Percy could have been if he ever got the chance to be a real person. He is self-aware enough to know he holds the same desperation for respect that Vex does, and after the death of his family the only reason he’s not found a justifiable method to kill himself is the awareness that he can do more good for other people alive. “Good” being a spectacularly subjective term, of course.

He is terrified. All the time. He doesn’t let it get in the way, his body moving like it’s someone else, words snapping crisply from between his teeth while he huddles backstage, heart pounding so hard he can barely hear the dialogue. But he will never let fear steal from him again. He lost a year to fear. To denial. To an inability to function. He lost an entire year and he is still so young, he knows this, knows that in 20, 40 years one year will not seem so bad. He doesn’t speak about it. Can’t really explain what it feels like to stand on sea-worn boards and look down at the whitecaps and realize you have no idea how you’ve come to this point. He did not know his hair had gone white until it had grown long enough to fall in his face. He's glad he wasn't conscious of Orthax at that point – how easy would it have been to simply accept that his body was no longer his own? To let things unfold?

It would be easier if he’d blacked out. Easier to have simply gone from one moment to another with an empty spot in between, instead of the foggy understanding that time had passed, that he had been doing something, with no memory or justification to contextualize it. He doesn’t realize it’s comparable to getting horribly drunk until he’s fighting off the panic attack along with the hangover and regretting everything. He has mastered his body, with all of its vulnerabilities. White hair, scars, the insomnia and the low-level ache that is ever present behind his temples; he has taught himself to set it aside. His mind is his best weapon. He has worked hard on it. It should not still run the risk of misfire.

The difference between Anna Ripley and the Briarwoods was that Percy understood Ripley’s cruelty. The Briarwoods tortured and murdered with no goal beyond hedonism. They were, at the end of the day, simple creatures; their love for each other and their delight in holding power over others leaving them stagnant and petty. Ripley is brilliant. Ripley is brilliant and sadistic and uncompromisingly ambitious. She understands that dignity comes from within, that playing the long game will always net greater rewards than scrabbling for every tiny win and fragment of pride. 

The only difference between Ripley and him is that Percy chooses to be kind. He chooses to fight for a net positive effect on the world. And do not ever think that it is anything but a choice. Percy is not a good person, but he will continue to do good things, and at the end of the day, it’s the outcomes that matter. He lets Grog stick his hands in acid, but doesn’t he learn an important lesson? He takes specifically targeted shots at enemies purely for his own amusement, but Vox Machina still saves the day. For each murmured mockery there is a safe place to sleep, a listening ear, a thoughtful gift. Percy is just as much of a sadistic, ambitious creature as Ripley, but Percy is the protagonist of this story.

Good and evil are nebulous concepts at the best of times. He uses his friends as a barometer, throws ideas and comments out just to catalogue the reactions they elicit. This, combined with his own logic and the complicated arithmetic of ethics, informs his understanding of morality. He reads philosophy in Whitestone when he is able, adds the theories to the machine in his head that spits out the equation behind each choice he makes.

He begs Vax not to trust him and knows it’s a lost cause even as he’s doing it. Vax has bled desperation for affection and acknowledgement for as long as Percy has known him, and he is easily undone by sincerity. At first, Percy had thought it a vulnerability he could ill-afford. Later, he’d thought he would like to be that person for Vax; the one to hold him down, cherished and seen. It’s a fucking good thing he never acted on it. There are a number of ways Vax reminds him of himself, and everyone knows Percy is harsher on no one more than himself. Far better Percy and Vex spend the next fifty years bouncing off each other, digging nails and teeth in just to hold on, laughing the whole time. Better Vax got Keyleth, eager to care for him in the exact same way Percy cared for his family. Vax is a concept as much as he is a person in Keyleth’s eyes, and given the hundreds of years she’s got to live after they’re all gone, he can’t imagine an alternative that would allow her to stay sane.

Percy should die young. That’s how this story should end. Everyone knows this, everyone expects it. But Cassandra doesn’t want to rule Whitestone alone and there are guns flooding the country and the continent and further. There are children who need a home. Vex has already been abandoned by the rest of her family. 

Percy does not deserve to live until he is old and greyer, but anything he has he has earned with his own two hands and his own mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello I guess I go here now.  
> [come suffer with me on tumblr](http://thought-42.tumblr.com)


End file.
